South Africa’s unemployment rate rises to 27.6%

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 27.6 per cent in the first quarter from 27.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2018, official data showed on Tuesday.

Statistics South Africa said in its quarterly labour force survey that there were 6.2 million people without jobs in the three months to the end of March, compared with 6.1 million people in the previous quarter.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, rose to 38 per cent in the first quarter from 37 per cent in the previous quarter, the report indicated.